CONTEMPORARY STRONG PEOPLE: CHARLES JEFFERSON; LOUIS CYR; JOHN GRUN
MARX; WILLIAM LE ROY.--THE NAIL KING, THE HUMAN CLAW-HAMMER; ALEXANDER
WEYER; MEXICAN BILLY WELLS; A FOOLHARDY ITALIAN; WILSON; HERMAN;
SAMPSON; SANDOW; YUCCA; LA BLANCHE; LULU HURST.--THE GEORGIA MAGNET,
THE ELECTRIC GIRL, ETC.; ANNIE ABBOTT; MATTIE LEE PRICE.--THE TWILIGHT
OF THE FREAKS. THE DIME MUSEUMS.
Feats of strength have always interested me greatly, so that in my
travels around the world I have made it a point to come in contact with
the most powerful human beings of my generation. The one among these
who deserves first mention is Charles Jefferson, with whose
achievements I became quite familiar while we were working in the same
museum many years ago. I am convinced that he must have been the
strongest man of his time at lifting with the bare hands alone. He had
two feats that he challenged any mortal to duplicate. One was picking
up a heavy blacksmith's anvil by the horn and placing it on a kitchen
table; for the other he had a block of steel, which, as near as I can
remember, must have been about 14 inches long, 12 inches wide, and 7
inches thick. This block lay on the floor, and his challenge was for
anyone to pick it up with bare hands. I noticed that it required
unusually long fingers to grasp it, since one could get only the thumb
on one side. Though thousands tried, I never saw, or heard, of anyone
else who could juggle his anvil or pick up the weight. True, I saw him
surreptitiously rub his fingers with resin, to assist in the gripping,
but that could have been only of slight assistance to the marvelous
grip the man possessed.
It is generally conceded that Louis Cyr was, in his best days, the
strongest man in the known world at all-round straight lifting. Cyr
did not give the impression of being an athlete, nor of a man in
training, for he appeared to be over-fat and not particularly muscular;
but he made records in lifting which, to the best of my knowledge, no
other man has been able to duplicate.
John Grun Marx, a Luxemberger, must have been among the strongest men
in the world at the time I knew him. We worked on the same bill
several times; but it was at the Olympia, in Paris, that he shone
supreme as a strongman--and at the same time as a weak one. For, in
spite of his sovereign strength, Mars was no match for a pair of bright
eyes; all a pretty woman had to do was to smile and John would wilt.
And--Paris was Paris.
Marx's strength was prodigious, and he juggled hundreds, and toyed with
thousands, of pounds as a child plays with a rattle. He must have
weighed in the neighborhood of three hundred pounds, and he walked like
a veritable colossus. In fact, he reminded me of a two-footed baby
elephant.
Always good-natured, he made a host of friends both in the profession
and out of it. After years of professional work he settled down as
landlord of a public house in England, where, finally, he was
prostrated by a mortal illness. Wishing to die in his native city, he
returned to Luxemberg. He did not realize that he was bereft of his
enormous strength, and those about him humored him: the doctor and the
nurses would pretend that he hurt them when he grasped their hands. He
died almost forgotten except by his brother artists, but they (myself
among them) built a monument to this good-natured Hercules, whose only
care was to entertain.
Among the strongmen that I met during my days with the museums, one
whom I found most interesting was William Le Roy, known as The Nail
King and The Human Claw-Hammer, whose act appealed to me for its
originality. So far as I could learn, it had never been duplicated.
Le Roy was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, October 3rd, 1873. He was about 5
feet 10 inches in height, and well set up. The inordinate strength of
his jaws, teeth, and neck, enabled him to push a nail, held between his
teeth, through a one-inch board; or to nail together, with his teeth,
two 3/4-inch boards. He could draw with his teeth a large nail that had
been driven completely through a two-inch plank. Then he would screw
an ordinary two-inch screw into a hardwood plank with his teeth, pull
it out with his teeth, and then screw it into the plank again and offer
$100 to any man who could pull it out with a large pair of pincers
which he proffered for the purpose. When he had performed these stunts
in various positions, he would bend his body backward till his head
pointed toward the floor, and in that position push a nail through a
one-inch board held perpendicularly in a metal frame. I saw no chance
for trickery in Le Roy's act.
Another nail act was that of Alexander Weyer, who, either by superior
strength or by a peculiar knack, could hold a nail between the middle
fingers of his right hand with the head against the palm, and drive it
through a one-inch board. But since this act did not get him very far
either on the road to fame, or toward the big money--he turned to magic
and finally became one of the leading Continental magicians, boasting
that he was one of the few really expert sleight-of-hand magicians of
the world.
I met Weyer at Liege, Belgium, where we had an all-night match with
playing cards. He admitted that there were some tricks he did not
know, but he claimed that after once seeing any magician work he could
duplicate the tricks. On this occasion, however, he was unable to make
the boast good.
Another clever performer of those days was Mexican Billy Wells, who
worked on the Curio platform. His act was the old stone-breaking
stunt, already explained, except that he had the stones broken on his
head instead of on his body. He protected his head with a small
blanket, which he passed for examination, and this protection seemed
excusable, considering that he had to do at least seven shows a day. A
strong man from the audience did the real work of the act by swinging
the heavy sledge-hammer on the stone, as shown in the accompanying
illustration. Usually the stone would be riven by a single blow; but
if it was not, Wells would yell, "Harder! harder! hit harder!" until
the stone was broken.
The last I saw of Billy was during one of my engagements at the Palace
Theater, New York. He was then soliciting orders for some photograph
firm, the halcyon days of his big money having faded to a memory. But
he had been a good showman and his was one of the best liked working
acts in the Curio, as the dime-museum profession was called.
Of all the acts of this nature that I have ever seen I think the most
foolhardy was that of an under-sized Italian who lay on his back on the
floor and let fall from his hands, extended upward at arm's length
heavy weights upon his chest--the silly fool! I said as much to
him--and some other things too. His act had little entertainment to
show as compared with the pain and danger involved. I do not know what
became of him, but I can guess.
Among the museum attractions of those years was a man named Wilson who
had the incredible chest expansion of twenty-one inches. This man
would allow a strong leather strap, about the size of a trunk-strap, to
be buckled round his chest; and then, inflating his lungs, would break
it with very little apparent exertion. An imitator, named Herman,
worked the side shows for a long time with a similar act, and was
fairly successful, although his expansion was only about sixteen
inches. The last time I heard of Wilson, he was working in the
shipyards at Newport News, Virginia.
Another "Samson," a German, among other sensational feats, such as
breaking coins with his fingers, used to flex his muscles and break a
dog-chain that had been fastened round the biceps of his right arm.
While he was performing at the Aquarium, in London, he issued a
challenge. Sandow, then a youth without reputation, accepted the
challenge, went upon the stage, defeated him, and, since Samson's act
had been the talk of the town, thus brought himself into instant
notice, the beginning of a career in which he rose to the top of his
profession. After several successful years on the stage, Sandow
settled down in London, where I last heard of him as conducting a
school of instruction in health and strength methods.
In the tradition of the "Female Sampsons" noted in Chapter Eleven, I
recall two strong-women who were notably good; Yucca, who lifted a
horse by means of a harness over the shoulders; and La Blanche, who
toyed with heavy articles in a most entertaining way. I remember these
ladies particularly because both were remarkably good talkers--and I am
referring to conversational quality, not to volume.
Lulu Hurst--known variously as The Georgia Magnet, The Electric Girl,
The Georgia Wonder, etc.--created a veritable sensation a generation
ago by a series of feats which seemed to set the law of gravitation at
defiance. Her methods consisted in utilizing the principles of the
lever and fulcrum in a manner so cleverly disguised that it appeared to
the audience that some supernatural power must be at work. Although
she was exposed many times, her success was so marked that several
other muscular ladies entered her province with acts that were, in
several instances, superior to the original.
One of the cleverest of these was Annie Abbott, who, if I remember
rightly, also called herself The Georgia Magnet. She took the act to
England and her opening performance at the Alhambra is recorded as one
of the three big sensations of the London vaudeville stage of those
days. The second sensation was credited to the Bullet-Proof Man. This
chap wore a jacket that rifle bullets, fired point-blank, failed to
penetrate. The composition of this jacket was a secret, but after the
owner's death the garment was ripped open and found to contain-ground
glass! The third sensation I must, with all due modesty, (business of
bowing) claim for myself.
The Magnet failed to attract after about forty-eight hours, for a
keen-witted reporter discovered her methods and promptly published
them. The bullet detainer also lasted only a short time only. When my
opening added a third sensational surprise, one of the London dailies
asked, "Is this going to be another Georgia Magnet fiasco?"
That they were gunning for me is proved by the fact that the same
newspaper investigator who exposed the Magnet, came upon the stage of
the Alhambra at my press performance--the same stage where the unhappy
Dixie lode-stone had collapsed--and though he brought along an antique
slave iron, which he seemed to think would put an end to my public
career on the spot, I managed to escape in less than three minutes.
When I passed back his irons, he grinned at me and said, "I don't know
how you did it, but you did!" and he shook me cordially by the hand.
Some twenty-six years ago I was on the bill with Mattie Lee Price, who,
though less well known, was in many ways superior to either Miss Hurst
or Miss Abbott. For a time she was a sensation of the highest order,
for which thanks were largely due to the management of her husband, a
wonderful lecturer and a thorough showman. I think his name was White.
He "sold" the act as no other man has sold an act before or since.
We worked together at Kohl and Middleton's, Chicago, and the following
week at Burton's Museum, Milwaukee; but when we made the next jump I
found that White was not along. They had had a family squabble, the
other apex of the triangle being a circus grafter who "shibbolethed" at
some of the "brace games," which at that time had police protection, so
far as that could be given. He had interfered between the couple, and
was, I am sorry to say, quite successful as an interferer; but he was a
diabolical failure when he attempted to duplicate White's work as
lecturer, and the act, after playing a date or two, sank out of sight
and I have heard nothing more of her professionally. Lately I have
learned that she died in London in 1900 and is buried in Clements
Cemetery, Fulham.
This was one of the most positive demonstrations I have ever seen of
the fact that showmanship is the largest factor in putting an act over.
Miss Price was a marvelous performer, but without her husband-lecturer
she was no longer a drawing card, and dropped to the level of an
ordinary entertainer even lower, for her act was no longer even
entertaining.
In Chapter Eleven we read Dr. Desaguliers' analysis of the mechanics of
what may be called strongmanship. Similar investigations have attended
the appearance of more recent performers.
For instance, reviewing one of Lulu Hurst's performances, the New York
Times, of July 13th, 1884, said:
The "Phenomenon of the Nineteenth Century," which may be seen nightly
at Wallack's, is not so much the famous Georgia girl, with her
mysterious muscle, as is the audience which gathers to wonder at her
performance. It is a phenomenon of stupidity, and it only goes to show
how willingly people will be fooled, and with what cheerful asininity
they will help on their deceivers.
Then follows a description of her performance, which was far from
successful, thanks to the efforts of one of the committee, a man
described as "Mr. Thomas Johnson, a powerfully-built engraver connected
with the Century magazine." Mr. Johnson had evidently caught her
secret, and he got the better of her in all the tests in which he was
allowed to take part.
A disclosure of the methods employed in a few of her "tests" will serve
to convince the reader of the fact that she possessed no supernormal
power, the same general principles shown here being used throughout her
performance.
These explanations are taken from the French periodical La Nature, in
which Mr. Nelson W. Perry thus sums up the attitude of the public in
regard to this class of performance: "Electricity is a mysterious
agent; therefore everything mysterious is electric." Of the performance
of the Electric Girl this magazine says:
It is a question of a simple application of the elementary principles
of the laws of mechanics, chapter of equilibrium.
We propose to point out here a certain number of such artifices and to
describe a few of the experiments, utilizing for this purpose the data
furnished by Mr. Perry, as well as those resulting from our own
observations.
One of the experiments consists in having a man or several men hold a
cane or a billiard cue horizontally above the head, as shown in Fig. 1.
On pushing with one hand, the girl forces back two or three men, who,
in unstable equilibrium and under the oblique action of the thrust
exerted, are obliged to fall back. This first experiment is so
elementary and infantile that it is not necessary to dwell upon it. In
order to show the relative sizes of the persons, the artist has
supposed the little girl to be standing on a platform in the first
experiment, but in the experiment that we witnessed this platform was
rendered useless by the fact that the girl who performed them was of
sufficient height to reach the cue by extending her arms and standing
on tiptoes.
Next we have a second and more complex experiment, less easily
explained at first sight.
Two men (Fig. 2) take a stick about three feet in length, and are asked
to hold it firmly in a vertical position. The girl places her hand
against the lower end of the stick, in the position shown, and the two
men are invited to make the latter slide vertically in the girl's hand,
which they are unable to do, in spite of their conscientious and
oft-repeated attempts.
Mr. Perry explains this exercise as follows: The men are requested to
place themselves parallel to each other, and the girl, who stands
opposite them, places the palm of her hand against the stick and turned
toward her. She takes care to place her hand as far as possible from
the hands of the two men, so as to give herself a certain leverage.
She then begins to slide her hand along the stick, gently at first, and
then with an increasing pressure, as if she wished to better the
contact between the stick and her hand. She thus moves it from the
perpendicular and asks the two men to hold it in a vertical position.
This they do under very disadvantageous conditions, seeing the
difference in the length of the arms of the lever. The stress exerted
by the girl is very feeble, because, on the one hand, she has the lever
arm to herself, and, on the other, the action upon her lever arm is a
simple traction. When she feels that the pressure exerted is great
enough, she directs the two men to exert a vertical stress strong
enough to cause the stick to descend. They then imagine that they are
exerting a VERTICAL stress, while in reality their stresses are
HORIZONTAL and tend to keep the stick in a vertical position in order
to react against the pressure exerted at the lower end of the stick.
There is evidently a certain vertical component that tends to cause the
stick to descend, but the lateral pressure produces a sufficient
friction between the hand and the stick to support this vertical force
without difficulty. Mr. Perry performed the experiment by placing
himself upon a spring balance and assuming the role of the girl, with
two very strong men as adversaries. All the efforts made to cause the
stick to slide in the open hand failed, and the excess of weight due to
the vertical force always remained less than twenty-five pounds,
despite the very determined and sincere stresses of the two men, who,
unbeknown to themselves, were exerting their strength in a HORIZONTAL
direction.
In the experiment represented in Fig. 3, which recalls to mind the
first one (Fig. 1), the two men are requested to hold the stick firmly
and immovable, but the slightest pressure upon the extremity suffices
to move the arms and body of the subject. Such pressure in the first
place is exerted but slightly, and the stresses are gradually
increased. Then, all at once, when the force exerted horizontally is
as great as possible, and the men are exerting their strength in the
opposite direction in order to resist it, the girl abruptly ceases the
pressure WITHOUT WARNING and exerts it in the OPPOSITE DIRECTION.
Unprepared for this change, the victims lose their equilibrium and find
themselves at the mercy of the girl, and so much the more so in
proportion as they are stronger and their efforts are greater. The
experiment succeeds still better with three than with two men, or with
one man.
The experiment represented in Fig. 4, where it concerns the easy
lifting of a very heavy person, the trick is no less simple. Out of a
hundred persons submitted to the experiment, ninety-nine, knowing that
the experimenter wishes to lift them and cause them to fall forward,
grasp the seat or arms of the chair, and, in endeavoring to resist,
make the whole weight of their body bear upon their feet. If they do
not do so at the first instant, they do so when they are conscious of
the attempts of the girl to raise the seat, and they help therein
unconsciously. The experimenter, therefore, needs only to exert a
horizontal thrust, without doing any lifting, and such horizontal
thrust is facilitated by taking the knees as points of support for her
elbows. As soon as a slight movement is effected, the hardest part of
the work is over, for it is only necessary for the girl to cease to
exert her stresses in order to have the chair fall back or move
laterally in one direction or the other. At all events, the
equilibrium is destroyed, and, before it is established again, it
requires but little dexterity to move the subject about in all
directions without a great expenditure of energy. The difficulty is not
increased on seating two men, or three men, upon each other's knees (as
shown in Fig. 4), since, in the latter case, the third acts as a true
counter-poise to the first, and the whole pretty well resembles an
apparatus of unstable equilibrium, whose centre of gravity is very high
and, consequently, so much more easily displaced.
All these experiments require some little skill and practice, but are
attended with no difficulty, and, upon the whole, do not merit the
enthusiastic articles that have given the "electric" or "magnetic" girl
her European reputation.
Strong people, whether tricksters or genuine athletes, or both, we
shall probably have always with us. But with the gradual refinement of
the public taste, the demand for such exhibitions as fire-eating,
sword-swallowing, glass-chewing, and the whole repertoire of the
so-called Human Ostrich, steadily declined, and I recall only one
engagement of a performer of this type at a first-class theater in this
country during the present generation, and that date was not played.
There was still a considerable demand for these people in the dime
museums, until the enormous increase in the number of such houses
created a demand for freaks that was far in excess of the supply, and
many houses were obliged to close because no freaks were obtainable,
even at the enormous increase in salaries then in vogue. The small
price of admission, and the fact that feature curios like Laloo or the
Tocci Twins drew down seven or eight hundred dollars a week, show that
these houses catered to a multitude of people; and not a few of the
leading managers of to-day's vaudeville, owe their start in life to the
dime museum.
Among the museums that were veritable gold mines, I might mention
Epstein's of Chicago; Brandenberg's of Philadelphia; Moore's of Detroit
and Rochester; The Sackett and Wiggins Tour; Kohl and Middleton's;
Austin and Stone's of Boston; Robinson of Buffalo; Ans Huber's, Globe,
Harlem, Worth's, and the Gayety of New York.
The dime museum is but a memory now, and in three generations it will,
in all probability, be utterly forgotten. A few of the acts had
sufficient intrinsic worth to follow the managers into vaudeville, but
these have no part in this chronicle, which has been written rather to
commemorate some forms of entertainment over which oblivion threatens
to stretch her darkening wings.